


Worth the Wait

by ryeloza



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 10:55:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15993734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryeloza/pseuds/ryeloza
Summary: “Seriously.  I bet you fifty bucks my story is better.  In fact, I bet all you guys that my story is the best.”“Oh, guys, I don’t think—This is getting way off track,” says Jerry.“You’re on,” accepts Leslie.  She’s leaning across the table now, looking at Tom with that slightly crazed competitive look in her eyes.“Ten dollars from everyone.  Best story wins.”Jerry just wanted to organize his teen abstinence workshop. Instead, everyone tells the story of their first time.





	Worth the Wait

**Author's Note:**

> This was a kinkmeme fill from way back when. The original prompt was: Everyone tells a story about their first time. Leads to Leslie and Ben hooking up.
> 
> There isn't anything too explicit in terms of the reminiscences, but Ron's is a little dicey in terms of consent. He's the second section for anyone who wants to skip.

“So,” says Jerry, smiling at the faces around the conference room table.  No one looks particularly enthused to be at his presentation, but that’s not unusual.  Nor is he a stranger to the notion that no one has been listening to a word he says.  If anything, it takes a little bit of the edge off.  “Ron and I were talking a few months ago,” he continues, shooting a hopeful glance at Ron, who looks as impassive as usual, “and he thought it was a great idea, and, well…I’ve decided I’m going to lead an abstinence workshop.  For teens.”

For the first time since he started talking, his coworkers seem to come alive.  April stops texting, cell phone landing with a thud on the table, and Donna snorts rather loudly, but to Jerry’s surprise, it’s Ann who speaks first.  “Wouldn’t that be redundant?”

“And stupid.”

“I mean, they’re already being taught abstinence-only in school,” she points out.  “If anything, you should offer a class teaching them safe sex options.”

“Oh, well…I don’t know about that.”  Jerry rubs his hands against his pants nervously, smearing a line of ink across the khaki with his pen.  “From what I’ve heard from my daughter, I’m not sure they’re adequately covering the topic.”

“Yeah, Ann.  Jerry has special qualifications.  All anyone has to do is look at you and they’ll never want to have sex again.”

“April!”

“What?  It’s true.”

“It’s moot,” Ron interrupts, placing both hands on the table and pushing his chair back.  He stands up, as if readying to flee the room as soon as he’s done speaking.  “Of all the pointless ways to waste taxpayers’ money, this is on the top of the list.”

“I actually think Ron’s right for once,” admits Ann.  “Like I said, we should really organize a class that—“

“Also a terrible idea.”

Jerry rings his hands together, looking from Ann’s scowl to Ron’s, and turns with imploring eyes toward the rest of the table.  “Well, really, Gayle and I have been organizing it,” he explains.  “We’ve been working with some of the other parents in our neighborhood.  But I was kind of hoping you guys might be willing to come talk to the kids.  You know…Maybe share some stories.  Explain the benefits of waiting.”

Jerry glances around the table again, puzzled by the blank stares his coworkers are giving him.  He feels the usual rise of panic and tries to think back on what he said, knowing he probably mentioned something he shouldn’t have.  Before he can muddle through his words, though, Donna seems to snap out of her stupor.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh—Well—“

“The only benefit of waiting is to keep men on their toes.  Keep them interested.”

“Gee, Donna, that’s not exactly—I just meant, you know, maybe you could talk a little bit about your first times…What it was like…The benefits of waiting…“

“Pervert.”

Jerry flushes at April’s comment, but manages to ignore her.  Everyone else still looks torn between discomfort and irritation.  “Like me,” he notes, keeping his eyes steadfastly away from April and Tom.  “I waited until I was twenty-five, and it was—“

A chorus of jeering erupts, and Jerry shuts his mouth.  Never mind the immaturity of his coworkers, though; reaching the teens is all that really matters.  Imploringly, he looks from Ron to Leslie, but neither seems particularly obligated to settle the group.  The cacophony is such that no one hears Ben when he raps on the door frame of the conference room.

“Hey, do you—”  He abruptly cuts himself off as he glances around the table.  “Uh—What’s going on in here?” 

“Jerry’s telling sex stories.”

“No, that’s not—“

“Don’t lie, _Jerry_.”

“Okay, okay,” interrupts Leslie, finally bestowing the calm Jerry desperately wants.  It doesn’t stop April from making a face the minute Leslie looks away, though.  “Look, Jerry, it’s an…idea.”

“A terrible idea.  What makes you think any of us are going to talk up the benefits of waiting, anyway?  Now if you want to talk about losing your v-card as soon as possible, I’m your man.”

Ann rolls her eyes.  “Yeah right.”

“Thirteen,” says Tom, holding up the pointer finger of his left hand and three fingers on the right.  “I was born with those skills, cupcake.”

Leslie shoots Tom a rather perturbed look, but doesn’t comment his lie (at least, what Jerry very much hopes is a lie).   “There’s nothing wrong with waiting to have sex,” she says, eyes flitting toward the door and then back to Tom.  “But I don’t think we should be lying either.”

“You just know your story would be so boring it’d put the kids to sleep,” says Tom with a rather dismissive hand gesture.  “If you’re gonna talk to teens about sex, it needs to be exciting.”

“That’s not—My story wouldn’t be _boring_.”

“Yeah right.”

“It’s not!”

“Leslie, the only person here whose story would be more boring than yours is Jerry.  Or maybe Ben.”

“Hey!”

“Seriously.  I bet you fifty bucks my story is better.  In fact, I bet all you guys that my story is the best.”

“Oh, guys, I don’t think—This is getting way off track,” says Jerry.

“You’re on,” accepts Leslie.  She’s leaning across the table now, looking at Tom with that slightly crazed competitive look in her eyes.  “Ten dollars from everyone.  Best story wins.”

Jerry sinks into his chair and buries his head in his hands. 

* * *

 

Ron watches impassively as Leslie throws a combative look at everyone in the room, clearly daring any of them to back down from the wager.  It is the best kind of pointlessness, Ron thinks.  One that both detracts from any workday productivity and inevitably earns him money.  He sits back down, nodding slightly at Leslie, but her eyes are glued to Ben, still lingering in the doorway.

“You in or out?”  It is less a question than a demand, and certainly one the younger man won’t refuse.  He would fling himself into oncoming traffic if Leslie told him to.  Fortunately for him, she would not.

Ron hasn’t been so lucky.

“Oh—Uh—“  Ben glances around the room and then back to Leslie, stepping into the conference room and sitting in the empty seat on Donna’s left.  “Are you sure about this, Leslie?”

“Ugh.  Don’t be such a nerd, nerd.  It’s just sex.”

“You know, guys, we really don’t have to do this,” mutters Jerry.  “I really didn’t intend to make this some kind of competition.”

“You didn’t,” balks Tom.  “I took your lame idea and made it better.  Now who wants to start?  Ann?  I bet you have a sexy little tale to tell.”

The nurse looks like she would punch Tom if she could.  Ron doubts she is capable, although he would appreciate the effort.  Tom might be well served by a punch at some point.  But at this juncture, an attack might well cost Ron an easy eighty dollars.  “I will start,” he declares.  Tom looks less pleased to escape physical assault than one would think.

“Didn’t you do it with Tammy One?” asks April.  She leans slightly forward, indicating more interest than she normally shows.  “Was there hitting involved?  Was it like an S&M thing?”

“Oh god please say no,” mutters Leslie.

“We are only talking about my first time,” states Ron evenly.  “It was with Tammy One.  There was no physical violence beyond some slight bruising that healed rather quickly.”

April sinks back in her seat, eyes back on her cell phone, and Leslie winces.  Ron acknowledges neither action.   

“I was fifteen,” he continues.  “I came to her classroom to fix an uneven desk leg at her request.  The desk was still wobbling when she mounted me.”

“Oh god.”

Ron chuckles.  “Never did fix the leg.”

“Wait,” says Tom, holding up his hands, eyes widening .  “You lost your virginity to your _teacher_?”

“My former teacher, yes.”

“Man, that is so hot.”

“Quite the contrary, actually.  There was very little touching, but her hands were as cold as a witch’s tit.  If you can imagine coating your penis in freezing water and then standing outside in a blizzard—“

“Good lord.”

“I feel I am well-equipped to procreate should there ever be another ice age.”

“Okay, Ron—“

“I still remember how she undressed me with ruthless efficiency.  Our foreplay was her watching me tighten the screws in the desk.  Self-sufficiency was a turn-on we both share, though her greatest thrill was crushing it into helpless co-dependency.  She didn’t even get undressed.  She just pushed me down on the desk, hiked up her skirt, and indulged in the hellish pleasure of controlling my mind, body, and soul.  To this day, the smell of chalk dust still stimulates that potent combination of fear and arousal.”

“Fear boners,” Tom says with a nod, plowing past the look of disgust on Ben’s unnecessarily expressive face and April’s low-toned “ew.”  Everyone else still sits in stunned silence, the type Tammy always appreciated.  Their sex consisted of little to no noise, as per her preference.  If Ron can say one thing for the woman, it’s that she certainly knew how to utilize a proper gag.  “Jean-Ralphio gets those whenever he sees Donna.”

“He best be thankful that’s all he’s ever gonna get.  That boy couldn’t handle what I bring to the bedroom.”

“Okay!” exclaims Leslie, coming out of her shock with a slightly dazed shake of her head.  “Thank you, Ron.  That was awful and disturbing.”

“As was all sex with Tammy.  She is the only woman I’ve known who can have an orgasm and not move a muscle.”

Andy blinks.  “Even the ones in her vagina?”

“No!” shouts Leslie.  “No, no, no!  That’s enough.  Thank you, Ron.  Who would like to go next?  Ann.  Ann, you would like to go next, right?  Tell us the beautiful, perfect story of your first time with whatever flawlessly chiseled Adonis was worthy of your love.”

“Okay, wow.  It wasn’t really like that, Leslie.”

“Of course.  I’m sure it was even better.”

“I don’t know,” says Ann.  “I don’t think anyone really wants to hear this.”

“Anything to get that story out of my mind,” mutters Ben.

“Please, Ann.  Please.”

The nurse sighs, resigned to Leslie’s insistence, and Ron crosses his arms, mind drifting to more pleasant thoughts of women who didn’t try to make him cry during sex.

* * *

This is such a bad idea.

Never mind that Ann doesn’t want to hear most of these stories.  God, Ron’s alone was scarring.  She can only imagine the horror—real or contrived—that April and Tom plan to inflict on the group.  What really concerns her is Leslie and Ben.

Specifically, the fact that Ben is sitting next to Leslie and shooting her not-at-all subtle moony glances whenever he thinks no one is looking.  Looks Leslie catches every so often and returns just as intently until one of Ron’s more particularly disturbing comments washes over them like a bucket of cold water.  Everyone else in the room has probably noticed their ridiculous flirting—you’d have to be blind or Chris Traeger not to—but she’s not sure any of them realize just how badly Leslie wants make out with Ben.

(And by make out, she means definitely more than make out.  Leslie overuses that as a euphemism more often than Ann cares to count.  She’s heard quite a few intimate descriptions of just what Leslie wants to do to Ben, and most of it involves them being naked together.  No one else, she’s sure, has been privy to that kind of detail.)

It’s not as if Ann has been exactly discouraging of this, though.  If anything, she’s been pushing Leslie to pick up the already agonizingly slow pace.  And she certainly can’t argue that an afternoon spent discussing sex in Ben’s general vicinity might not stir things up.

But that’s the problem.

Because they certainly can’t do anything at work.  In which case, Leslie’s frustration is going to be palpable, which means a long night of ranting and cursing the rules and yet another pro-con list that will turn out the same as the last twenty have.  As much as she loves Leslie, if Ann’s honest, she’s more than a little tired of listening to her obsess about a situation she could fix with one good kiss.

And if they do finally act on their feelings here…

Well.

They’re going to have a much bigger problem on their hands.

Ann just wishes they were anywhere else.  Somewhere far away from City Hall.  Preferably a place with a lot more alcohol and a few dark corners to sneak off to.  Someplace where Leslie can finally act on her feelings and get what she so obviously wants.

Instead they’re going to continue to talk about sex under the harsh florescent lighting of the Parks Department conference room.

She sighs.   

“Ugh.  Hurry up,” whines April.  “This story is already awful.”

“I haven’t started yet.”

“Exactly.  It’s only going to get worse.”

“It was actually really sweet,” Ann corrects—or maybe confirms, if April’s groan is anything by which to judge.  “It was the night before my sixteenth birthday, and my boyfriend and I were hanging out in the park.  We had a few too many wine coolers and one thing led to another…”  She smiles at the memory, glancing around the table in search of recognition and appreciation, but it turns April isn’t the only one who looks bored.  In fact, only Donna and Leslie aren’t affecting boredom, and they both look mildly horrified.

“You were drinking underage?  In the park?  In the park, Ann?  Really?”

“Yeah, well—“

“No one cares,” interrupts Donna, which is probably true.  “Get to the good part.  Exact location.  Position.  His member.  Length, girth—You know.”

“Oh,” says Ann.  If anything those details are a little fuzzy.  Between the alcohol and poor lighting…And she and Scott hadn’t lasted long after that night.  “Um.  We actually went back to his car.  Or, well, his mom’s car.  Her station wagon.”  She looks around the table again.  April now has her hands over her ears.  She shrugs.  “It was surprisingly roomy.”

“A station wagon, Ann?  Really?”  Tom shakes his head.  “I expected better.”

“It was nice.”  She stares at the others imploringly.  Is anyone here really going to attest to mind-blowing sex their first time?  Nice and sweet are qualifying words she’s always been more than happy to use.  There had been a lot of making out and some semi-awkward foreplay and the actual sex had only lasted about a minute, but Scott had held her after and couldn’t stop kissing her, and she’d just been happy.

For god’s sake—Ron practically admitted to being molested and her story is worse somehow?

“This is embarrassing for you,” Tom condescends.  He’s about one patronizing comment away from getting punched in the nose.

“Better than my first time,” mutters Ben, but no one else is listening.  Ann shoots him a grateful look, though, and he grants her a small smile. 

“Whatever,” says Donna dismissively.  “You’ve hooked up with some damn fine men since then.  Who cares if your first time wasn’t one for the books?”

“Thanks?”

“My story, on the other hand, is straight out of the pages of a romance novel.  And I mean that literally.”

Leslie sits up straighter, eyes already a little darkened at the thought, and shoots Ben a quick smile.  Ann suppresses a groan.

So much for that Lifetime movie marathon she was planning tonight.

* * *

“Romance novel?” asks Leslie, sitting up a little straighter.  Damn if that isn’t a sign the girl needs to get laid.  “What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you.”  She gets up, ignoring the puzzled stares as she heads out to her desk.  It’s not like she planned on keeping the book here for just such an occasion—there are other, better reasons to keep romance novels hidden in her desk—but it sure is going to come in handy now.  “Here,” she says, returning to the conference room and tossing the well-worn book down on the table.  Everyone stares for a moment as Donna takes her seat, until Ann tentatively picks it up.

“ _Dionne and the Perilous Pirate_?  Donna, what is this?”

Donna holds out her hand and Ann passes the book back across the table.  The cover art leaves a lot to be desired—the man isn’t even shirtless—but Donna knows the contents of the book well enough not to judge.  Hell, she _lived_ the contents.  At least some of them.

“This,” she says, tapping her fingernail against the spine of the book, “is a testament to my skills in the bedroom.”

“What?  You were reading this or something?” asks Leslie.  “I’ll admit—“

“No.  I _am_ Dionne in this book.  The man who wrote this is the first man I ever slept with, and let’s just say he borrowed _extensively_ from our experiences together.”

She sets the book down and leans back in her chair, delighting in the flabbergasted looks on her coworkers’ faces, ranging from Ben’s skeptical belief to Tommy’s outright awe.  Well-deserved awe, if she does say so herself. 

“So you’re telling me that you lost your virginity to…”  Tom snatches up the book.  “…Luca de Salvatore?”

“Lucas Salvo, actually.  Luca de Salvatore is just a pen name.  And he wasn’t really a pirate.  Or all that perilous, considering he cried when I left him.”

“And he went on to write the story of your time together?” asks Leslie, way too eager and starry-eyed.  “That’s actually kind of romantic.”

“It might have been.  If he hadn’t shown up to give me a copy of the book, sobbing and asking me to take him back.  As if I’d want to rekindle one summer fling I had when I was seventeen.  Please.”

“Whoa!” says Tom.  He’s opened the book, staring at a page all bug-eyed and shocked.  “Listen to this: ‘Paolo pulled Dionne into his arms, relishing the weight of her bosom pressed against the rippling muscles of his chest.  He may have taken Dionne’s maidenhood, but she had captured his heart.  Dionne was more dangerous than the roughest seas, the deadliest hurricanes, and even him, the dreaded Perilous Pirate.’”  Tom stares at her, unblinking.  “Was he really a pirate?”

“Hell no.  He’s just some writer.  He was doing a book signing at some teeny little shop in his hometown.  Same place my family vacationed every summer.  I went down to get him to sign my copy of _Victoria and the Vicious Viper_ , and damn if the man wasn’t fine.”

“So the pirate thing…”

“We did it on his boat a few times.”  Donna shrugs.  “There might have been some role play.  But trust me, he was not the pirate in that scenario either.”  She nods to Tom, who still has the book open, and adds, “Page twenty-two.  That’s the first time.”

Tom flips back to the beginning of the book, eyes skimming a few paragraphs, and then his mouth drops open.  “Jeeeez.”

“What?  What does it say?”

“‘Paolo felt a stirring, a hardness, of his manhood at the sight of Dionne standing on the deck of his ship, breasts heaving as the sunset painted the sky in front of them.  He moved to stand behind her, roughly pulling her back against his chest.  Dionne gasped as he moved his hands to her perfect bosom, tearing her dress open to touch her silky skin.  He caressed her, calloused thumbs brushing against her sensitive flesh, and he couldn’t stop from pressing his hardness against her bottom.  “You want me, Dionne,” he said, lust dripping from his every word.

“No,” commanded Dionne, turning in his arms.  “It’s you who wants me.”’  Damn, Donna.  Is this for real?”

“I told you.  Worthy of being immortalized in print.”

“Apparently,” agrees Ann.  She’s leaned over Tom’s shoulder to read the rest of the passage, flushing slightly at the words.  Donna can only imagine she’s gotten to Lucas’ description of his own cock, an ode that is only surpassed by his description of being inside of her for the first time.  She glances down at her own nails, playing it cool.  “Was he really that…well endowed?”

“Let’s just say the man has earned his bragging rights.”  Really, she thinks, it’s too bad Lucas had to ruin it with all his crying at the end.  Reliving the more passionate moments of their affair in writing would be so much sweeter without the memory of him begging her to take him back.

The book is making rounds around the table now, Ann taking it from Tom and then Leslie tentatively picking it up when Ann drops it and begins to fan herself.  She’s reading quickly, eyes darting from left to right, and as her mouth drops open in surprise, Ben leans in over her shoulder to read along.  Slowly, a deep pink flush enters her cheeks, and when Ben lets out a low-toned, “Good lord,” she practically throws the book across the table to April.

“Should we even bother to hear the rest of your stories?” asks Donna.  That money is as good as hers.

“No way!” whines Tom.  “You don’t get to win just because you had a professional tell your story!”

Donna thinks that’s exactly why she’s going to win, but she shrugs.  Let Tommy try to top her.

“I’ll go!” volunteers Andy, oblivious to the fact that his wife is pocketing Donna’s personal property.  She catches Donna’s eye just as she slips the book into her purse, and Donna grins at the young girl’s slightly embarrassed look.

“Yeah,” agrees April, turning away from Donna.  “Andy’ll go next.”

* * *

“So,” says Andy, slapping his hands against the table and slowly standing.  “Everyone wants to know how Andy Dwyer lost his virginity.  It’s an interesting story.”  He glances around the table, and then ducks in so his lips are almost against Tom’s ear.  “Or is it?”

“Oh god—Andy.  Just tell the story, please.” 

He looks over at Ann.  She seems kind of annoyed.  She has the same look on her face as that time he tried to make grilled cheese sandwiches with her iron and accidentally got cheese all over her shirt.  And then the shirt had had these weird cheese buttons, and he’d tried to eat one, but it turned out that a cheese button was really still just a button that he swallowed. 

But man.  Until all the yelling and the trip to the hospital, that was an awesome food experiment. 

“I will tell two stories,” he announces, standing up straight.  “One is the truth and one the anti-truth.  It is up to you to decide which is which.  Except Ann.  Because she already knows.”

“April doesn’t…”  Leslie trails off, shaking her head.  “Never mind.”

“The first tale goes like this!”  He puts his hands behind his back, beginning to walk around the table like he’s solving a mystery.  Except, you know, he’s already solved it and is really about to accuse the butler or something.  Ben, he decides.  Ben would be the butler.  He already cleans up after him and April anyway.  Who knows what crimes he’s committed.

“Andy?”

Oh, right.  “I was in the cafeteria at school,” he begins, narrowing his eyes at Ben as he continues around the table.  “My friend Ralph bet me five bucks I couldn’t drink an entire gallon of milk in one minute.  And I said, “You’re an, idiot.  Who can’t drink a gallon of milk that fast?  Milk is awesome.’”  He bends again, throwing one arm around Leslie and one around Ben, tugging them both closer and looking back and forth between them.  “Twas I who was the idiot, though.”  He stands, slapping Ben on the back.  “Turns out you can’t drink that much milk in a minute.  I puked everywhere.”

“Oh god—Is this part of the story even necessary?” asks Ben. 

“Yep.  They sent me to the nurse’s office to recover, and this girl Angie was there because she sprained an ankle or something during gym.  And the nurse was mean.  Like, really mean.  She took away all the tongue sticks and cotton balls and the other fun stuff to play with and told me to just lie there on the cot.  It was so boring.  And then Angie was like, ‘Hey, aren’t you that kid who tried to fly off the roof of the gym in sixth grade,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah.  I was.’  And she said, ‘Cool, wanna make out?’ and I was like, ‘Hell yes.’  So she climbed on the cot with me since I wasn’t allowed to move and then we made out.”

“Does this story have a point?”

“Yes, Mr. Havenstein—“

“Haverford.”

“—it does.  So after awhile, Angie got bored making out and she asked me if I wanted to have sex in the bathroom.  So we snuck in there and had sex.  And it was awesome.  Like, amazingly awesome.  And after, Angie was like, ‘So that was your first time, huh?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah.  How did you know?’  But she never really explained.”

He looks around the table, waiting for someone to react, but everyone is just kind of staring at him.  Finally, Ben says, “So is that it or…?”

“I don’t know.  You tell me, Beniffer.”

“That’s not my name.”

“The other story goes like this: So I never thought of myself as a hero, but after I rescued that cat from a burning building—“

Everyone groans loudly.  “Yeah, okay, Andy.  It was the first one.”

“Definitely the first.”

“Just stop, please.”

Puzzled, Andy returns to his seat.  April puts a hand on his thigh, leaning in to rest her head on his shoulder.  “But babe,” he whispers, frowning as Tom launches into his story, “that first one _was_ the lie.”

* * *

“Alright, enough of these lame-ass stories,” declares Tom as Andy slumps back in his seat.  He looks confused, like he actually expected someone to believe he saved a cat from a burning building. 

Yeah, right.

“It’s time to hear from the winner,” he continues.  “And by winner, I mean me.  It’s about to get so hot in here your panties are going to combust.”  He winks at Ann, who makes a face and physically backs her chair away from him so she’s closer to Leslie.  He falters, turning his eyes back to the rest of the table, only to be greeted with a myriad of skeptical looks.

Dammit.  Donna had them all eating out of her hand.  How is he going to top her losing her virginity on a damn yacht or pirate ship or whatever it was? 

“So like I was saying before,” he says, stalling.  What is hotter than a boat?  A jet?  A limo?  Hot tub?  “I was twelve when I lost my virginity.”

Ann crosses her arms, still glaring at him.  “You said you were thirteen, actually.”

What?  “Yeah.  Twelve.  Thirteen.  Whatever.  Doesn’t matter.  The point is, I was in the back of this hot tub in a limo when I saw this totally hot older woman in the car next to mine.  And let’s just say she was more than impressed with what she saw.”

“And you were in a limo because…?”

“Uh—Movie premiere.  No, wait.  It was prom, actually.”

“When you were twelve?”

“Yeah.  A senior saw me and liked what I brought to the party.  You know how it is.”

“And then you saw _another_ older woman?”

“…Yes?”  Two older women in a limo hot tub is way better than one pirate on a boat, right?  What is he thinking?  Of course it is.  “Yes!  And they were _both_ all over me.”

“Ugh.”

“Tom!”

“Stop lying.”

Tom’s eyes widen.  “I’m not!”  What the hell?  How did they know?

“Oh yeah?” asks Ann.  “So what was this older woman’s name?  The one who saw you and your prom date in the limo’s hot tub?”

“Oh…Uh…Brooke Shields?”

There’s an audible onslaught of displeasure at the lie, and April tosses a pencil at his head for good measure.  It hits him right in the temple and clatters to the floor.  “Ow!  What?”

“Tell the truth, Tom.”

“That is the truth!”

Another pencil hits him, this time right on the forehead.  What the hell!  Someone is going to take out his eye!  “Okay!  Okay!” he shouts, desperate to stop the onslaught.  “You wanna hear the truth?  You wanna hear how I lost my virginity on the back of a hay ride at our annual Fall Festival?  Is that it?”

“You lost your virginity on a hay ride?” asks Leslie.  “That’s actually kind of cute.”

“Ugh—No it’s not!  It’s lame!  Like Jerry-level lame.  Almost as bad as losing your virginity in a corn maze, which is how most people in my town did it.”

“Actually,” says Jerry, rubbing salt in the wound like the vindictive bastard he is.  “Gayle and I did get married on her cousin’s farm.  It was kind of a wild night, too.  We—“

“Ahhh!  Shut up, shut up, shut up!”  Tom puts his hands over his ears, but he can still hear April laughing.  He feels seconds away from crying. 

“Okay.  Well, I think that means Tom is disqualified for lying.”

“What?”

“So who’s left?”

“You can’t disqualify me for lying!”

“Then how about for having the lamest story?”

“Yeah,” agrees April, and what the hell?  She’s siding with _Ann_ now?  “Even Ann’s story was better than that.”

“Ann?  Ann and the _station wagon_?  Did I mention the girl was all over me?  She practically tackled me on the hay bale.”

“Sorry, Tommy.”

“This is so unfair.”  Tom leans back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, pouting.  Ben and Leslie are the two biggest nerds in this office, and they’re already beating him.  And Jerry—ugh. 

How the hell did he end up losing his own bet?

* * *

It’s kind of reassuring, April thinks.  Tom’s blatant, terrible lying.  It eats away at some of those nagging doubts in the back of her mind, that stupid little voice that’s trying to point out how different she is— trying to make that seem like a negative thing rather than positive.  It’s not like she goes around talking about her sexual experiences with her _friends_ or her _sister_ or something, and one story after another picks away at her own assurances like maybe there’s something wrong with her.

But Tom’s lying.  Outright lying, just to seem as cool as everyone else.  And it reminds her that everybody here is probably lying to some extent: to keep up appearances or assuage their own doubts or because they’ve convinced themselves that’s how it really happened.  It’s the same crap everyone has always tried to tell her: that the first time is going to be some big fucking deal and you better wait to do it with the right person—the sweet boyfriend or the sex god or the person you marry.  Listening to her coworkers is simply more of the same; they all just want to make it seem like that’s true.  That it was perfect because they waited for that person.

April didn’t wait for that “right” person and her first time wasn’t perfect either, and she guesses she’s  just the only one not lying to herself about it.  The only one not leaving out details like having to guide him in because he couldn’t get there by himself, and the thought of _that’s it?_ when he finished too fast, and being kind of annoyed because everyone acted like it was a huge deal and managing to prove them wrong wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it should have been.

It’s gotten better, of course.  A hell of a lot better.  But maybe the first time would be less disappointing for people if everyone just stopped lying about it.

Not that she’s going to be the one to start. 

“Why don’t you go next, April?” says Leslie, shooting Tom one last annoyed look.  “We could use a sweet story after that.”

April taps her pen against her cheek.  “What makes you think my story is sweet?”

“Well it was your wedding night.”

Andy gasps.  “It was?”

“God.  No.  I lost my virginity when I was seventeen.”

“Really?  But I thought—Not that there’s anything wrong—“

April rolls her eyes as Leslie babbles.  Leslie’s consistently naïve beliefs about April’s sex life have always been fairly amusing, more insightful into Leslie’s own life than April’s.  She wonders what Leslie would say if she told the whole story—the real story—in detail.  If she’d feel more or less kinship after hearing it.

Even more, she wonders if Leslie will try to sell the same revisionist history as everyone else.

“My first time was in the cemetery,” she states coolly.  She can see the questions on their faces; all of them wondering if she’s telling the truth or not, and no one willing to call her out.  She’s much better at this than Tom.  “It was Halloween night and my friends and I were playing hide and seek.  I climbed up on this statue of an angel, crouching down between its wings.  In the dark, no one could see me.

“I sat there waiting, pressing myself back against the smooth marble and letting the black night swallow me.  Far away, I could hear my friends: the shrieks when someone was found, the quiet running as someone tried to make it to the home base.  But I sat silently, barely breathing, not even daring to blink.

“I’m not sure how long I sat there.  Long enough that my legs started to go numb, muscles stiff from crouching.  Long enough that my friends gave up looking me, the sounds of their searching slowly fading away. 

“I was alone in the cemetery. 

“Even though I knew I had won, I didn’t move.  I couldn’t move.  I remained frozen, almost against my will.

“Suddenly, I felt a chill.  It wasn’t just the cool breeze of late October.  It was a cold that seeped through my skin down to my bones, so frigid that I couldn’t breathe.  My lungs ached.  My skin tingled.  But still, I couldn’t move.  Something brushed against my cheek—a hand, but not a hand.  It was the faint whisper of a touch; a touch desperate for the warmth of a human. 

“Lips pressed to mine, same as that ethereal hand.  Touching but not touching.  Suddenly, I was able to breathe again, the warmth of my breath rushing through those lips and illuminating my lover.  Hovering above me was the pale, formless spirit of a ghost.”

To April’s annoyance, there’s a collective shaky sigh of relief from everyone in the room.  Leslie laughs nervously as Andy wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes.  “What?” she says crossly. 

“Wait—“  Andy pulls back, looking at her with concern.  “Are you serious?”

“No, Andy,” says Ann condescendingly.  “She’s screwing with us.”

“I knew that.”

“It’s the truth,” April lies.  “I had sex with a ghost, right there in the cemetery.”

“Disqualified!” shouts Tom.  “If I’m out for lying then she definitely is.”

April ignores him, turning to Leslie with a frank, level stare.  Despite herself, she feels some kind of absurd expectation to hear the truth. 

“I guess it’s your turn, Leslie.”

* * *

For a split second when April turns to her, Leslie wants to forfeit.  It’s a flash of realization that comes with so many eyes assessing her—with _Ben’s_ eyes assessing her—that she’s about to tell a story that is about as far from romantic or sexy as she could get.  And it’s not that she cares, exactly, except that faced with having to tell it, she kind of wishes the guy she desperately wants to sleep with wasn’t here.  So much of this story is not what she wants Ben to associate with her and sex.

“I guess it’s your turn, Leslie,” says April coolly, and the impulse to decline leaves her as quickly as it came.  The fact of the matter is, however weird or embarrassing this might be, Leslie is not a quitter.  She steels herself, decidedly not looking at Ben (well, maybe one quick glance out of the corner of her eye, and wow, how is it possible that he _always_ looks so attentive when she speaks?), and begins.

“It was spring break during my sophomore year of college,” she says, trying very hard to look at everyone but Ben, “and I’d been dating my boyfriend for five months.”

“Five months?”  Tom gapes at her in that unpleasant way he has when he pretends it’s impossible to understand her.  “And you hadn’t had sex?  Jeez, Leslie.  I’ve never been in a relationship that’s lasted that long—“

“I wouldn’t brag about that,” Ann interjects.

“—let alone without sex.  What the hell were you guys doing?”

“It was fine,” says Leslie, because sadly, all the talking and making out had ended up being better than the sex.  “Pretty great, actually.  And it’s not like…I mean, we wanted to have sex, but you know…My roommate was always around and he lived at home with his parents—“

“Ugh.”

“—and he had this thing about hotel beds because he read that they’re very unsanitary.”

“This guy said he wouldn’t sleep with you in a hotel because of germs?” asks Donna incredulously.  “Who was this guy?  Howie Mandel?”

“What?  No—It’s not—I mean, the point is, my grandparents asked me to house sit for them over spring break, and we figured it would be perfect.”

“Your first time was at your _grandparents’ house_?” asks Tom.  “Did you do it on their bed?”

“Ew.”

“No!  We used the guest bedroom.”

“Oh god.  That is so lame, Leslie.”

Beautiful  meerkat Ann jumps to her defense.  “It sounds sweet.”

“Ugh.  No one cares what you think, Ann.”

“No one cares about any of this.  This story is a one way trip to Snoozeville, Leslie.”

“I’m not done.”

“No?  Are you going to tell us how he lubed up with your granddad’s Bengay?”

“It was pretty great,” says Leslie, ignoring Tom.  “Really, it was going pretty well until I heard someone coming through the front door.”

“Oh god.”

“It was my grandparents.  Their flight was canceled and they couldn’t get another one until the next day, so they came home for the night.”

“Oh, Leslie,” sympathizes Ann.  “Please tell me your grandparents didn’t walk in on you having sex.”

“No.  Not exactly.”  Leslie takes a deep breath, really not looking at Ben this time, and says in a rush, “I heard them come in and I just kind of panicked, I guess.  I shoved Danny off of me and threw on my clothes and went downstairs to see what was going on.”

“You shoved him…You don’t mean when he was…?”

“Yeah,” says Leslie.  “Right in the middle of, actually.  And then he tried to sneak out, but he ran into my grandpap, and it was pretty obvious that he was still…aroused.  And maybe I couldn’t stop from blurting it out, I don’t know.”

“Oh, Leslie.”

“We had to sit with my grandparents for over an hour while they lectured us about responsible sex.  There were stories…”  She trails off, frowning.  “It’s the second worst time I was interrupted during sex.”

“What—“ Ben starts, but she finally looks at him and he blushes.  “Never mind.”

“Wow,” says Tom just as there’s a loud knock on the frame of the conference room door.  Leslie looks up, startled, and feels her cheeks flush guiltily when she sees Chris standing there.  Oblivious, Tom continues, “That was possibly the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh no.  What’s that?” asks Chris, stepping into the room.  “Please tell me everyone is okay.”

“What?   No, it’s just Leslie’s pathetic sex story.”

“Leslie?”

She’s going to kill Tom.  Slowly.  And painfully.  “It wasn’t—We were just helping Jerry out.  With ideas for his sex education class.”

“Really?” asks Chris, going from concerned to delighted in less than a second.  “Way to show initiative, Jerry!  How can I help?”

“You got a good story about losing your virginity?” asks Donna.  “I bet you do.”

“It is terrific,” agrees Chris.  “I was backpacking through Europe—“

“I think,” declares Ron, standing up and eyeing Chris blankly, “that it is time we get back to the real work of doing nothing.”

“Actually, Ron, I needed to talk to you,” says Chris, throwing his arm around Ron’s shoulders.  “Walk with me.  Ben, could you come too?”

Ben blinks, almost as if he’s surprised he’s still sitting there, and shoots her quick look as he stands.  Leslie feels a rush of something desperate, an anxious desire to know what he’s thinking and maybe to tell him some stories that prove she’s much more adept at sex now and also force him to tell his story because it’s totally unfair that he didn’t share, but he’s already walking out of the room and she can’t exactly shout any of that at him here.  She sinks back in her chair, frowning, and Ann reaches over to squeeze her hand.

“Okay,” says Donna, the second Chris is out of earshot.  “I want my money.  Pay up.”

No one even tries to protest.

* * *

At the end of the day, Ben finds himself back in the Parks Department.

It’s not exactly atypical.  Leslie almost always stays late, and it’s not a burden to find some extra work to do in the hope of getting a few minutes alone with her at the end of the day.  Usually it’s nothing more than an innocent indulgence, the minutest way to get a piece of what he wants but can’t have. 

Except tonight is different.  Tonight there’s an anxious tension in the way he strides into the room, a lack of that ambivalent desire to confess everything and maintain on the staid course.  Tonight he isn’t coming here under some pretense just to see her.

Tonight Ben finds himself in the awkward predicament of sympathizing with Leslie’s ex, and it’s changed everything. 

It’s surreal, finding himself relating to a guy who was lucky enough to be with Leslie almost two decades ago.  The realization crept up on him slowly, niggling at him all day as he replayed Leslie’s somewhat disastrous story over again in his mind.  He’d been marveling at the other man’s idiocy—his refusal to find a way to be with Leslie because germaphobic tendencies and some ridiculous semblance of perfection.   If Ben knows one thing for certain, it’s that he would never let fastidiousness get in the way of being with Leslie.  It was a fact he’d been congratulating himself for, some absurd pride he’d felt in his obviously superior skills at realizing how much Leslie means, when the hypocrisy had struck him in the face.

Yeah, he’d make love to her worst motel in the world—one he’s probably stayed in at some point—but it doesn’t mean he’s not cowing to other fears.  Ethics.  His best friend.  His career.  His very own list of reasons why not to be with Leslie.  The things he reminds himself of when his daydreams go too far or she makes him laugh or when she smiles at him a beat too long.

He _was_ her ex.

It was hard to shake the notion once he’d had it.  No matter how many times he reminded himself of the superiority of his dilemma, that his reasons were the kinds of important things you’re supposed to consider as an adult, the parallel between himself and her moronic ex-boyfriend couldn’t be shaken.  He’d sat there, thinking about a guy who put off having everything with Leslie for reasons he still doesn’t understand, and found himself wondering if five years from now, he’d be looking back and cursing himself.  Wondering if he missed the _most_ important thing.  And that, he’d realized, was a bigger doubt than anything else. 

He had to tell her how he feels.

The rest of the day had been agony.  The elation of finally making a decision was crippled by the knowledge that he had to wait to do anything about it, and in the meantime, he’d had the entire afternoon to oscillate between the best and worst outcomes that could come from this.  By the time everyone else left for the night, he was so keyed up he couldn’t sit still.

Yet as he finally strides into the Parks Department and sees Leslie, the reality of what he’s decided hits him like a ton of bricks.

“Hey,” she says, completely unaware that he’s in the middle of one of the biggest moments of his adult life.  “Are you heading out?”  She looks at him, brow furrowing in concern, and takes a step toward him.  “Ben?”

“I’m not going to be the idiot who won’t get a hotel room,” he blurts out, and wow, that was not what he intended to say.  At all.  Leslie’s eyes grow wide, and immediately he flinches.  “That’s not what I—I mean, I’d been thinking about your—Never mind.  This is a terrible analogy.” 

“Yeah,” Leslie laughs shakily, and something in that admittance—the idea that maybe she gets what he’s trying to say, even if he’s fucking it up—reminds him of what he intended for this moment to be. 

“What I really mean,” he begins again, “is that I don’t want to give up the chance to be with you because the circumstances aren’t perfect.  Because they never are.”

“No,” agrees Leslie faintly.  “They never are.”

Her agreement does something to him, makes his hope and anxiety soar simultaneously, and he takes a deep breath to keep himself on track.  “There’s always going to be some reason not to try,” he says slowly.  “To think it’s not worth the risks.  But you and I…I think we could be.  If we tried.”

The pause that follows feels like the space between them.  Too much, too hard not eliminate, and even though he swore he wouldn’t, Ben steps toward her before he can think it through.  The need to touch her is a physical ache, a trembling in his hands that he can’t control, but as he lifts his hand to cup her cheek, she reaches out to capture it.  Her hand holds his fingers, an action meant to stop him more than anything, and when he looks down at her, her smile feels like a polite rejection.

“You didn’t tell your story today,” she accuses.  Her tone is as playful as always, but Ben is beyond ready to burn the bridge between their flirtation and something more.  Backtracking over it is a path back to the reality of why they shouldn’t do this.  A retreat from the courage he finally summoned. 

Yet he can’t drag Leslie forward. 

Awkwardly, he tries to pull back, freeing his hand and giving her the space he had silently promised her, but Leslie won’t let him go.  She turns her hand, entwining their fingers, and suddenly he can’t remember how to breathe.  “Maybe,” she explains, “I just want to make my own terrible analogy.”

He shakes his head, elated over the possibility that they’re on the same page and totally uneager to revisit that moment, or any moment those first few months after his impeachment, and mumbles, “Leslie, I was drunk and depressed and stupid—It’s hardly anything I can even remember beyond being even more ashamed of myself and—“

Her lips are on his before he can finish, their clasped hands trapped uncomfortably between their bodies, but just as his brain catches up to the wonderful reality of what’s happening, she pulls back.  “This will be worth remembering,” she promises.

_Every moment with you is_ , he thinks, but it’s too saccharine to admit, even now.  Instead, he kisses her again, freeing his hand to finally touch her, thumb stroking her cheek as her hair brushes the backs of his fingers.  She responds immediately, her own hands fisting into his shirt to pull him closer, and Ben is hit with the brazen realization that she wants him as much as he wants her.  It’s a notion that’s been reserved for his wildest fantasies these past few months, and the collision of his imagination and the reality of her leaves him dizzy.

He is actually, finally making out with Leslie Knope.

Holy shit.

Leslie, apparently not as lost in the wonder that this is happening and it’s amazing and they should never ever stop as she is in the actual act of kissing him, opens her mouth beneath his, drawing his tongue forward and deepening the kiss.  He wraps an arm around her back, anchoring them to one another, and Leslie moans in response, a sound that renders him unaware of everything but her.  When she backs him into the doorjamb a second later, he barely registers the pain.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, and he’s kissing her again before she finishes the second syllable. 

Time seems to slow down as everything between them speeds up.  Leslie manages to untuck his shirt, her hands finding their way along the bare skin of his back while Ben begins to map her body with his lips.  He presses soft kisses against her neck, lingering when she responds, a whimper or a moan or the tightening of her fingers against his skin that makes him want to take his time.  To see if nipping at her skin in this spot makes her gasp or if the pressure of his tongue and lips in that spot make her hips buck toward him.  But Leslie doesn’t indulge his exploration long enough, fingers threading through his hair and tugging him back up to her lips.  When her other hand sneaks around his waist to start fiddling with his best buckle, he groans and finally pulls away from her.

Kind of.  He can’t imagine it’ll be possible to be too far from Leslie at any time from this point on.

“What?” she mutters as he grasps her hands in his and pulls both of them to a more innocuous location.  She looks up at him, eyes darkened and foggy with lust, cheeks flushed and lips red and swollen, and Ben barely feels in control.  When she frees her hands and shrugs off her blazer, it’s almost impossible to vocalize any rational thought.

“We shouldn’t,” he manages to say, not quite reinforcing his words as he stares at her chest.  Leslie’s fingers toy at the top button on her blouse, and god, what was he saying?  “We shouldn’t here.”

“You’re right,” agrees Leslie, undoing that top button and then the next one.  “We shouldn’t.  Even if we’re the only two people left in the building.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And even if the conference room table is right there, and I’ve had some pretty dirty thoughts about you there.”

_What?_   “You have?”

Leslie shrugs and undoes another button.  “We’ve spent a lot of time together in there,” she points out, but by that rationale most of City Hall would be subject to her fantasies.  But she couldn’t possibly…

Good lord.

Still.  They shouldn’t.  They’ve been reckless enough for a lifetime already.  “We could go to your house,” he points out.  “Or get a—“

He stops himself before the words “hotel room” leave his mouth, but judging by Leslie’s smirk, she knows what he means.  “Weren’t you the one who said we shouldn’t wait?” she asks.  Her fingers are steadily moving down her blouse now, the slimmest hint of skin revealed at the slight parting of the fabric.  “You know who likes to wait?  Jerry.  Do you really want to be Jerry, Ben?”

He could argue this, he thinks dimly.  There are holes in her logic and somewhere deep down he still knows this is a bad idea, but god, Jerry is the worst.

He doesn’t want to be Jerry.  Ever.

Leslie looks at him expectantly, abandoning her slow striptease to put her hands on her hips in a show of impatience that is both endearing and absurdly sexy, and he honestly can’t think of one good reason to say no.  He raises his hands and slowly pulls her blouse away, eyes focused on hers as the fabric floats to the floor.  He sees her breath hitch, some miniscule amount of control ceded to him, but he can only revel in her. 

Her skin is fair, the palest smattering of freckles along her shoulders, and he realizes how poor his imagination was in realizing the beautiful detail of her.  He lets his eyes explore her now, limiting his fingers to soft, lazy movements along her shoulders and collarbone, the swell of her breasts, and she takes a shuddery breath.

There are a thousand possible things to say in this moment, and somehow he can’t articulate a single one.

Leslie, on the other hand, seems more than willing to bypass the sentiment.  “Later,” she says, hands moving to make quick work of his shirt buttons.  She’s obviously less steady than she was with her own, though, and he moves to help her. 

“Are you always in such a hurry?” he teases as she peels his shirt off and moves her hands back to his belt.  “Or is this just because we’re doing this in the one place we never should?”

Leslie shrugs, undoing the fly of his pants and hurriedly tugging them down, and he lifts his hands to her cheeks, tilting her head up to look at him.  “Just wait until I get you into an actual bed.”

She rolls her eyes and pushes up on her toes to give him a quick kiss.  “Just wait until I get you inside me,” she counters, and with those words, the last semblance of restraint leaves him.  He kisses her hard, clumsily toeing off his shoes and kicking off his pants at the same time.  She kicks off her heels, pulling him down to counter the suddenly more significant height difference, and laughs as he backs her into the conference room.  They run into a chair first, Ben frustratingly shoving it away as Leslie works to remove her pants and underwear, but he only has a second to admire her before she’s kissing him again.  She guides him back until they find the table, and then he half-lifts her, half-helps her hop up onto the smooth surface.

 “This is so wrong,” she mutters as his lips move sloppily along her jaw and down her neck.  His hands fiddle with the clasp of her bra as hers move beneath the waistband of his boxers, her fingernails lightly scraping over his ass.  At this point he wants her so badly, he wouldn’t care if Chris walked in the room.  “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Your idea,” he points out.  He helps her shrug off her bra, tossing it across the room, and then his hands find her breasts.  There’s nothing teasing in his touch now, just a slight desperation to touch all of her, everywhere, to hear her gasp and moan and watch her lose control.  He presses her back until she’s lying on the table and moves his mouth to her breast, circling her nipple with his tongue and then trailing wet kisses across her chest to repeat the action on the other side.  Possessing talents he wasn’t aware of, Leslie moves to work his boxers down using only her feet, and he nearly loses it.

“Come on,” she says, not begging so much as commanding him.  He helps her pulls his boxers off, stepping out of them when they puddle at his feet, and gently trails his hand down her body.  Her hips roll impatiently, but she groans when his fingers finally part her folds, a sound he echoes when he feels how wet she is.  It’s impossible not to indulge this for a few minutes, to allow his fingers to stroke her, to enjoy the movement of her body and the sounds she makes as he moves a finger inside of her.  He’s almost surprised when she suddenly sits up again, kissing him briefly before pulling back.  “I have condoms in my purse,” she pants, apparently unable to stop herself from pressing a few more kisses against his skin, and holy shit, this is actually, really about to happen.

“I got it,” he says, and stepping away from her to retrieve one is possibly the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.  When he finds one, he tears open the wrapper and rolls it on, and it’s only when he turns back to her that he realizes she’s staring.  “Are you—Is this okay?” he asks absurdly.  She’s sitting naked on the conference room table and they’re both impossibly turned on and he just put on a condom, for fuck’s sake, and still he feels some sudden self-conscious realization that he’s naked in front of a woman who he cares about more than he thinks he’s even admitted to himself.

But then she smiles at him, and everything, even his embarrassment, is perfect.

“Come here,” she says, and he doesn’t have to be asked twice. 

Everything is a rush of movement: their kisses hot and desperate, their touches electric, but when Leslie grasps his cock and guides him forward, everything seems to stop for a moment.

He presses into her slowly, both of them adjusting as they join together for the first time, and then they pause, the mingling of their panted breaths the only sound in the room.  As she’s been from the moment he met her, she’s overwhelming.

This—them together—is overwhelming.

Leslie recovers first, eagerly rolling of her hips in a way that begs him to move.  He obeys, slowly at first, his body working to find a rhythm that matches hers while his mind drifts toward the oblivion of sensation.  Every thought is of the feeling of her: the friction between them, the softness of her skin and the movement of her lips, and how incredible she feels around his cock.  Her arms are wrapped around his neck and her lips find his as she slowly lies back on the table again, and at the slight change in position, he begins to move faster.

Something clicks at that point, the same franticness that drove those first few kisses and motivated this impulsive decision to have sex where they work.  It’s the low string of curse words Leslie lets out, the way she looks lying on the table, the sense that they’re doing something right and wrong at the same time, and the fact that they’ve been waiting so long for this, they can’t seem to stop themselves.  Leslie’s hand moves down her body to find her clit, stroking herself as he watches raptly, and it only spurs him to thrust harder and faster.  They’re heading toward a crescendo he hoped to prolong, but everything about this is too fucking much to stop.  When he looks down and meets her eyes, happy and hazy and trusting, the enormity of this connection between them sends him over the edge.  He drops his head to the curve of her neck, biting lightly at her shoulder as he comes undone, and Leslie groans, her own orgasm moving through her like a lightning bolt.

They’re a mess, sweaty and satisfied and lying naked on a table where their coworkers regularly meet, but Ben is far from that reality.  He can’t stop himself from kissing her, languid movements of his lips against any inch of skin nearby; he can’t stop himself from indulging in this first moment together after they’ve had sex.  When he finally lifts his head to look at her, she’s smiling lazily, flushed and happy and sated, and the rest of the world can go to hell.  He wants to look at her like this forever. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He kisses her, and she giggles against his lips, a contagious laughter he returns.  “What?” he asks, kissing her again.  And another time, just because he can.  He’s grinning as he pulls back to look down at her.

“Nothing,” she says.  “I was just thinking that I don’t know whether this would qualify as a win for waiting or not.”

“What do you mean?”  He brushes her hair back, smiling where at the tendrils of hair along her forehead where her curls have become wilder.  “We didn’t wait.  We didn’t even try to make it to the car.”

“Yeah.  But before that we waited _months_ ,” she groans.  “Maybe we could list conference room sex as a benefit of waiting.”

“Sure,” Ben teases, though really she might not be so far off.  He imagines a bed would have been involved if he could have just taken her out to dinner like he wanted to months ago.  “That’s one for the abstinence workshop.  Definitely.”

“I don’t know about that.  But we definitely just blew everyone else’s first time stories out of the water.”

“I don’t know.  Technically we were strictly talking about losing our virginity earlier and this—“

“Oh shut up,” laughs Leslie.  “Just admit that I’m right.”

He kisses her instead.


End file.
